1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to means for insect control. More particularly, the present invention relates to a microbe-mediated method of attracting mosquitoes for control purposes or for destroying mosquitoes.
2. Description of Related Art
Insect control has been in great demand throughout human history. It is necessary to control harmful insects like mosquitoes, to prevent the spread of disease, such as malaria and yellow fever. Public health authorities everywhere have expended intense effort on eliminating mosquito-related disease; however, this effort has not been wholly successful, largely because of the difficulty of eliminating mosquitoes. In addition to eliminating mosquito-related disease, another reason for eliminating mosquitoes is abatement of the nuisance caused by mosquito bites. Therefore, there has been a perennial call for means of effective mosquito control, including means to attract, capture, or destroy active mosquitoes.
Female mosquitoes seek a human host from which they obtain a blood meal for egg development. Mosquitoes locate hosts through a combination of chemicals characteristic of the hosts. It is believed that the volatiles emanating from the human host are responsible for the attractant. These volatiles contain 300-400 compounds and originate from either the secretions of skin glands, or the decomposition of the skin microflora, or both. The mosquitoes use their olfactory structures to detect the attractant from as far away as 90 meters
Current methods of control only attack the mosquito population as a whole by chemical means or seek to remove their breeding sites. These methods arc cumbersome, labor-intensive and often disruptive, in that they may introduce dangerous amounts of toxic chemicals into the environment. Some other attempts have been made to construct mosquito traps. For trapping mosquitoes, light, warmth, carbon dioxide octenol, water vapor and lactic acid have all been used as attractants.
The invention provides a method for controlling mosquitoes by attracting mosquitoes using bacterial decomposition products as the attractants for blood-feeding female mosquitoes and for non-host seeking mosquitoes respectively. This invention has combined heat and simulating attractants to achieve a highly efficient attraction. The invention also comprises methods for trapping mosquitoes for control purposes or for destroying mosquitoes after attracting them.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for generating the mosquito bait, as well as simulating the human body""s surface temperature and emanated odor. A well-controlled heating assembly can be used to generate a suitable thermal gradient for enhancing the release of the bait. The bait comprises at least the bacterial fermentation products. The bait is not poisonous to human beings and contains mosquito attractants made from natural products of bacterial fermentation or incubation. The bacterial fermentation or incubation is further processed and fertilized to obtain the final bacterial fermentation product as the bait. This invention can also combine with electrocution grids or insecticide webs to destroy gathered mosquitoes.
As embodied and broadly described herein, the present invention provides a portable mosquito controlling system for trapping mosquitoes, for use indoors or outdoors, the system comprising an upper compartment including a plurality of channels for admitting and trapping mosquitoes; a bottom compartment connected to the upper compartment by a snap-in clip mechanism. The mosquito controlling system further comprises a fixture for holding a cassette (or bottle) containing at least a bacterial fermentation product and controllable heating means for generating heat.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.